Works in Progress

Posts where I talk about stories, novels, and other projects as they’re in the process of being created

Status Post: 24 August, 2019

PETERMBALL Works in Progress

Another week draws to a close and the next week is being planned, which means it’s time to break out another Status Post as I survey the state of things here in Brain Jar Headquarters.

BIG THINGS ACHIEVED THIS WEEK: Some weeks the achievements are the big list of things you did above-and-beyond the list of things you set out to do. Some weeks the achievements are the things you kept on track despite the drawbacks. This week is one of the latter, with my fiction writer suffering but my PhD word count and a lot of goals on the non-writing side of writing were all met.

And I did sneak in shiny new website redesign during the week, when it was clear creative work wasn’t going to stay on track. That lets me tick a task of the “one day’ list, and opens up a bunch of opportunities that weren’t there under the old layout.

Also, there was this:

CHALLENGES, MET & UNMET: I’ve had a pretty good run of getting stuff done of late, but got caught in a someone-is-wrong-on-the-internet discussion earlier this week that derailed me midweek. I also ran into the dark side of productivity–the part were anxiety sinks its teeth in and starts coaxing me into trying to do even more, which is usually a sign that it might be a good idea to scale back and do slightly less.

CURRENT EARWORM: Fuck knows where it came from, as I’m not a fan of the band, but I’ve spent the morning singing the same four lines from the Doors Touch Me that my brain has managed to dredge up from somewhere.

Brains are fucking weird, man.

CURRENT READING: Shades of Milk and Honey, the first book in Mary Robinette Kowal’s Glamourist Histories. I gave my partner a copy of Kowal’s The Calculating Stars as a birthday gift, and the level of enthusiasm as she read through was a good reminder that i’ve been reading to read Milk and Honey for years.

BEST SCREEN MEDIA OF THE WEEK: Wu Assassins stole our hearts this week, and likely will retain its hold until we run out of episodes and scroll through Netflix in a forlorn daze wishing we could find something just as good. some really nice action scenes, great use of cinematography and colour, and just really nice attention to detail in every part.

INBOX STATUS: 8 Emails awaiting my attention, but I just glanced over and at least half of that is either newsletters that will be quickly processed or random emails about cars that are probably meant for a different Peter M. Ball who lives in the UK.

WHAT I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO RIGHT NOW: I saw the Mandalorian Trailer and instantly found myself wanting to see by a project that I was dimly aware of, but not that interested in. I mean, look at this thing:

So, yeah. Bring on November, even if I have to subscribe to a new streaming service to get it. I’m fucking sold.

Saturday Status Post: 17 August 2019

PETERMBALL Works in Progress

It appears I had a bunch of good ideas back in February, many of which were derailed by life rolls and complications far beyond my control. One of these was the regular STATUS POST as a lead-in to the Sunday Circle, and I’m going to try and back into the groove of such things.

HAPPIEST MOMENTS OF THIS WEEK: I finished the redraft for Short Fiction Lab #4, handed it off to Brain Jar’s resident beta reader, and put it up for preorder at the usual suspects.

BIG THINGS ACHIEVED THIS WEEK: After rocking the whiteboard as an organisational tool earlier this week, I’ve actually succeeded in getting a bunch of things on-track. Aside from the aforementioned development work on Brain Jar’s next release:

  • I hit my writing quota for the thesis for the first time since June, and actually started buying down the word-debt I owe that project.
  • I progressed a fiction project every day this week–not quite back to the 1,666 words a day i think of as “cruising speed” as a writer, but close enough to make me happy.
  • I’ve written a bunch of blog posts ahead of time, because I’ve missed the routine fo regular blogging and would like to get back to it.
  • I got my reading mojo back, devouring three books in the space of seven days.
  • Consolidated everything I need to do into a single work space, instead of shifting around the house.

It doesn’t quite tick everything off my list from last week, but I’m starting to see the shape of my routines again and that gives me the space to start hacking them to add new things.

CURRENT EARWORM: Emile Autumns It’s Time for Tea, particularly the line ‘Revenge is a dish best served…now.’

CURRENT READING: The Penguin Book of Hell, compiled by Scott. G. Bruce.

I don’t actually remember picking this book up at any stage, although it definitely looks like the kind of thing i’d grab because it’s likely to be useful. Bruce compiles a bunch of writing about hell and its denizens, starting with ancient greek writing about Hades and progressing all the way through to some 20th century authors.

It’s fascinating to trace the literary origins of some particular beliefs and tropes about hell that we naturally assume to be biblical, but actually come from secondary sources.

BEST SCREEN MEDIA OF THE WEEK: I raved about this in my newsletter on Wednesday, but the Stallone/Schwarzenegger team-up film, Escape Plan, caught me by surprise with its ambition and storytelling. It was a film custom-built to coast on nostalgia and the promise of seeing Sly and Arnie team up for the first time, and it didn’t.

INBOX STATUS: Two emails remaining at time of writing, although I haven’t checked in this morning.

WHAT AM I LOOKING FORWARD TO RIGHT NOW? Next week!

Partially because I’m feeling on top of things for the first time in forever, and I’m excited to see how I can adjust what I’m doing and start building upon it.

Partially because my partner got some news about a health issue that’s been frustrating her for a while, and I remember what it was like when I went from having-sleep-apnea-and-nobody-really-knowing-about-t to having-sleep-apnea-and-treating-it.

And partially because my friend Nic is running Call of C’thulhu next weekend, and it’s always a good weekend to poke your nose at things that man is not meant to know and go mad as a result.

Celebrate the Little Victories

PETERMBALL Works in Progress , ,

There’s a writing-based group I track where folks are encouraged to post celebratory screenshots when they finish a draft. It’s a nice little ritual, and so I’m borrowing it to celebrate a moment here:

Yesterday, after twenty days and thirty-six thousand words of drafting, I typed <<the end>> on the first draft of a new novella. For those who have been following along, this means it took about four days and six thousand words to flesh out the skeleton draft and get this into a state where every scene actually reads like a scene.

It’s not done yet–the books is rough as hell, and names changed halfway through when it inherited a title I’d been planning to use for another story featuring this character. More importantly, the story may be finished to the point of coherence, but that isn’t the same thing as being good.

The next step: let it lie fallow for a week or so. Nail down some of the packaging elements, such as the blurb and the cover, so I’ve got the story I’m promising readers in my head before I go back for a redraft. Make a list of major character changes based things that came up in the last 10% of the drafting process. Double check that I’ve hit all the genre expectations, and create a research list for story elements that will need to be given a little more realism than a quick wikipedia search will reveal.

Then I bust out my copy of Charlotte Nash’s How To Edit A Novel and start putting together a plan that will get this done by the release date I’ve earmarked.

Meanwhile, I start writing something else entirely. Move away from the Sci Fi and indulge my urban fantasy side for a while.